On Saturday night I was at a concert with a friend whom I'd dragged to see one of my favorite bands from back in the late '90s (Pavement). We found ourselves reminiscing about the past and reveling in the present. It's amazing to think of the advances in technology that we're witnessing right before our very eyes, many of which were still just forecasts the last time that Pavement was on tour, and mere fantasies when we were all kids. It was the stuff of science fiction and James Bond movies, but it's happening now, right in front of us.

MSNBC has it 100% right by banning banner ads on its site. Enough is enough. The truth is that most marketers who buy banners to achieve "reach" might as well be burning their money. Today on the Internet it's easily possible to very cheaply buy a BILLION banner "impressions" "reaching" hundreds of millions of people, but how many people will actually be impacted in any way by a message delivered like this? On the Web, reach numbers are far too easily gamed.

Advisory boards, directly or indirectly, are part of our business lives. These boards are often in the background counseling or watching the backs of our management teams; they're helping steer turnaround or growth of burgeoning businesses. You may rely on these boards or sit on them. And they seem increasingly vital in these industrious times, when people and teams are continually pushing the rim of their own comfort zones.

My company recently moved to Google Apps, a software-as-a-service office suite. I was skeptical at first. The behavioral change was painful. Precision and features were lacking. But after four months, I'm now a convert and advocate for cloud-based email, documents, presentations and calendar. Here's why:

The history and growth of electronic media has been marked by some key events, when explosions of audience interest took new media to new plateaus. Arguably the John F. Kennedy assassination and the first moon landing were landmark events in television coverage that went far beyond U.S. audiences. CNN's compelling coverage of the first Gulf War put cable news on the map and was the first stake (of many) into the hearts of the print newsweeklies.

Much of Internet marketing is intended to sell products. What's most interesting are the differences between selling products that are primarily impulse buys vs. those that are considered purchases, and the implications that can have on your chosen marketing strategy.

Recent discussions have suggested that perhaps brands' quick responsiveness to complaints in social media settings, especially Twitter, might be training consumers to voice complaints even more. I admit, when I first heard this, I had to think about it, because it seemed a reasonable hypothesis. However, the truth is that as people become more comfortable with using tools like Twitter to broadcast, or "graphcast" (broadcast to their social graphing), the conversations in social media channels will more and more resemble how people talk to each other in everyday life. And, unfortunately for marketers, people are more likely to talk about ...

Depending on how we interpret and tally the notches on our belt or loops around the proverbial block, some of us will say we've been in digital, by one definition or another, from 10 to 16 to 27 years. We all geek-out on keeping track.

Management teams consistently celebrate and pay lip service to the idea of KPIs, but they often fail to effectively establish and apply them. This failure sometimes results from unclear corporate strategy. KPI problems can also stem from a failure to apply the necessary discipline and investment in intelligence, analysis and reporting. Making matters worse, there is a common trap many managers fall into: reporting a litany of metrics that do little more than indicate that a lot of activities are going on in the organization.

What will the next generation of TV advertising look like, and who will drive it? I participated in a panel discussion this week at OMMA Video where we wrestled with that question. Will set-top-box data and measurability change TV? Will it be advertising leveraging "Request for Information" interactivity on standard remote controls, as Canoe Ventures is advancing? Will it be addressability combined with demographic or purchase data and an influx of direct mailers? Or will it be driven by cross-platform campaigns linking Web video to TV campaigns?